Distance Learning Advisory Committee Meetings
Agenda / Minutes
Distance Learning Advisory Committee
10/31/2014
Date of Agenda Posting:
11/7/2014
Meeting Date:
2:00 PM
Meeting Start Time:
Meeting Actual Start Time: 2:00 PM
Knight 4090 Board Room
Meeting Location:
Beth Anish
Meeting Secretary :
Member Attendance
Committee Member Name
Title
Present
Jim Glickman
Elizabeth Morais
Bill Pellicio
David Alfano
Cindy Hansen
Sara Cichon
Jen Hurrell
Martha Vigneault
Tony Basilico
ENGL
Y
N
Y
Y
N
N
N
Y
Y
Francine Luizzi Bench
Marla Wallace
LANG
HMNS
PSYC
BIOL
OFTD
Rehab
REHAB
COMI
N
Y
Y
N
Y
Dean Maureen McGarry
Becky Sheldon
MaryAdele Combe
Beth Anish
Karen Allen
Ben Leveillee
Helen Ducharme
Allied Health--Dental
Library
DL Coordinator
Assessment Coordinator
Academic Affairs
Coordinator
Dean HARS
IT
IT
ENGL
COMI
IT
Disability Services
Jude Tomasino
OES
N
Kathleen Beauchene
English
Y
Maggie Burke
Jeanne Mullaney
Donna Mesolella
N
N
Y
Y
Y
Y
N
Notes
John Rood
Nursing
N
Agenda
Agenda Item 1
 Approval of last meeting's
minutes
Agenda Item 2
 Policy vs Operational
Committee
Notes on Discussion
Minutes from 4/18/14 meeting were approved by
the seven members who were also present at last
meeting (with one typo to be fixed in item 11;
Beth has since changed “honest” to “honesty”).
Notes on Discussion
Maggie: VP Lamontagne presented a revised
version of the governance to a committee
composed of the governance committee
chairpersons. This revised version was approved
unanimously by that group. The revised
governance structure will be revisited in the
Spring. The revision separates committees into
different categories: contractual, policy,
operational, and ad hoc. Operational committees
report to a VP and generally do not create
policy. In the revision, the DLAC would be an
operational committee under VP
Lamontagne. Operational committees do not
have elected members and are not restricted by
term limits. The VP to whom the committee
reports, together with the committee chairperson,
would determine mission and membership as
needed. VP Lamontagne would like us to discuss
whether we agree that the DLAC is an operational
committee and vote on this.
DLAC discussion: some concern that we would not
be able to make DL policy, but we’ve always been
an advisory committee. We make
recommendations to Academic VP, and he decides
whether to bring them before President’s Council.
President’s Council sets policy. The advantages
to agreeing to become an operational committee
are that there would be no term limits for
members and members would not have to be
elected. Being an operational committee allows
us to meet our membership needs without an
election (instead the DL committee could
determine a need, say from an underrepresented
department such as Nursing or Math); the DL Chair
would then ask for approval from AVP to appoint
someone to the committee. There are only 3
policy committees: Academic Advisory, Student
Advisory, and Emergency Response. Most other
committees would be operational.
Members present voted on whether to become an
operational committee. 9 members voted in
favor and 2 abstained.
Agenda Item 3
 OnGOALS Student Support
Module
Agenda Item 4
 DL vs. On-Campus Course Data
Notes on Discussion
Maggie reported on OnGOALS, a student support
module implanted for the first time in Fall 2014.
Close to 200 students currently enrolled in online
classes took part. There were 12 courses used to
pilot the module. Two honors student
moderators started the semester with the module,
but neither is currently still with it. One was for
the Technology side and other for the rest of
questions on the Discussion Board (family,
balancing workload, etc.). The Discussion Board
is the feature students used most. There was
quite a bit of activity there at the beginning of the
semester, but it has died down now. Still,
students are still logging on. The orientation
component of the module featured lessons on
how to attach a file, how to post into discussions,
etc. There were also quizzes on the tasks
learned. 21% of students who started the
module did some of the orientation piece, and
14% completed the orientation. Because some
courses that were involved in the OnGOALS pilot
also had sections not in the pilot, we will have data
to compare between the two groups.
Notes on Discussion
When looking at the figures for DL courses versus
on-campus courses, the percentage of those who
passed with at least a C or at least a D is very close.
Fall 2014 and Spring of 2014 data shows
discrepancy of just 2-3 % passing rates.
Previously it was reported as a 6% discrepancy by
Institutional Research, but Maggie is not sure
exactly what terms they used in gathering the
data. Maggie would like to continue doing this for
a number of semesters. She might even ask VP
LaMontagne if she can go back 5 years into data
and see if there have been any trends as one of
her projects for next semester.
Agenda Item 5
Notes on Discussion
A subcommittee created our answer to QM Rubric
or Blackboard Exemplary Course Rubric. Our
rubric is distinguished from QM in that QM only
covers course design. Ours also attempts to
include instructor presence. There are nine
dimensions to our rubric. Maggie asked if we
would each take one dimension of the rubric and
apply it to one of our online courses and report
back at next meeting. We could see how our
courses measure up to the dimension, and see
how the dimension measures up to what we value
in our courses. We chose to work on the 9
dimensions as follows:
QA Rubric
Organization: Beth A.
Instructor Presence: Kathleen B.
Achievement of Learning Outcomes: Dave A.
Accessibility: Martha V.
Regulatory Standards/College Policies: Jim G.
Communication of Course Procedures: Tony B.
Interlearner Activities: Bill P.
Resources/Methods of Instruction: Marla W.
Aesthetics:
course
Mary-Adele will do one of Maggie’s
Maggie will e-mail rest of committee to see if
other members want to double up on these
dimensions so we get more feedback.
Agenda Item 6
- FAQ
Notes on Discussion
FAQ committee hasn’t met since last semester.
Maggie will send the subcommittee the FAQ
developed for OnGOALS and see if we can just
adapt that. Beth will organize a meeting of the
FAQ subcommittee once we receive that from
Maggie.
Agenda Item 7
Notes on Discussion
Do we want to work on the Distance Learning SRI
or stay with the current one? We could take
instructor presence dimensions from the rubric,
for example, and add it to the SRI (and
remove/change other items). Committee
decided to table this discussion until after we
evaluate the rubric, and then perhaps incorporate
elements of the rubric. We need to know what
constraints we’re under in terms of being tied to
the on-campus SRI if we want to change this.
We’ll need to ask someone from course evaluation
committee, perhaps Leigh Martin. We’ll come
back to this in the Spring.
- SRI
Agenda Item 8
- Code of Conduct
Agenda Item 9
Notes on Discussion
Dave and Maggie will work on that.
Notes on Discussion
- Announcements from CIT
Evaluating LMS
The CIT has initiated undergoing LMS evaluation
just to keep up with what’s out there.
Blackboard will be going to the Cloud, which will
mean a major change coming down the road
(maybe 5 years out). Other area colleges are using
Canvas, which does use the Cloud. 10 or so
faculty members are interested in exploring
Canvas further; one faculty member will try it out
with one course next semester. We’ll decide if
we want to pilot it more fully later. Canvas
charges for a pilot; it would be Fall 2015 for a pilot
at the soonest (if there is sufficient faculty
interest). Pilot will morph into full-blown license
if we decide to do that. A major difference with
Canvas is reliability of upgrades compared to
Blackboard (which gives new features, but then
often breaks old ones with updates). CIT will also
look at Moodle to do due diligence with what’s out
there. If anyone else would like to participate in
evaluating these, let MaryAdele know. Anyone
can look at Canvas online, but CIT will offer
trainings for those wanting to be a part of the
evaluating group.
Accessibility Document
Agenda Item 10
- Physical Space for Online Students
Agenda Item 11
- Online Faculty Mentors
MaryAdele reports that Yan is working on an
accessibility document. Maggie suggests we look
at what URI is already doing. This document will
offer hints and tricks to make our courses more
accessible to students with special needs (limited
hearing or vision, for example).
Notes on Discussion
A Dept Chair asked Maggie if new student club
space in Warwick building should have
meeting/study space for online students.
Discussion: we’re not sure it would be used by our
students; there are other study spaces on campus
such as at the library; space is already allocated to
clubs anyway, according to Dave. Suggestion that
we have online “space” for mentoring/chatting
about DL issues, but the consensus was that
physical space in the new student union area
wasn’t needed for DL students.
Notes on Discussion
Do we have a way for faculty new to DL to be
mentored? Dave says in Psych department a
new DL faculty member shadows a current faculty
member for one semester, and then the current
faculty member shadows the new one the next
semester when he or she starts teaching an online
course.
Maggie: Next step from pedagogy course could be
to follow something like Psych does on a
department to department basis.
Ben: Instructional Designers do this at other
schools and could do it here. Not content
experts but are experts in instructional design.
Beth: could be a combination approach and have
both Instructional Designer and department
colleague help with a new course.
Maggie: we’ll continue to think about mentor idea.
DL Conference Day
Should we have an online teaching conference?
Kathleen: it would be a great opportunity as part
of Professional Development Day.
What could our PDD session be? This is
something we should think about. Series of
workshops on DL?
our feedback.
Maggie will e-mail us to get
Meeting Action Items
Action
Assigned To
Email OnGoals FAQ to Beth
Email DLAC for PDD session idea
Work on Code of Conduct
Evaluate rubric dimensions
Maggie
Maggie
Maggie and Dave
Full committee, as assigned in
Item 5 above (and any other
members who want to be
involved but weren’t present at
the meeting)
Meeting End
Meeting Schedule End:
Meeting Actual End:
Next Meeting Date:
Next Meeting Time:
Next Meeting Location:
By 4:00
3:38
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Deadline